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No More Silence: An interview with Boz Tchividjian of G.R.A.C.E.

By Rachel Held Evans, on March 18, 2013.

This is the second post of our weeklong
series, Into the Light: A Series on Abuse and the Church, which
features the stories of abuse survivors, along with insights from professional
counselors, legal experts, and church leaders about how to better prepare
Christians to prevent and respond to abuse. (Check out this morning’s post
from Mary DeMuth.) Through the course of the series, we will be discussing
child abuse, spiritual abuse, sexual violence and abuse, and domestic
violence. In addition, my friends
Hannah, Joy, Shaney, and Elora will be hosting a synchroblog focused
specifically on spiritual abuse, which you can learn more about here.

This afternoon, I am
pleased to feature an interview with Basyle ‘Boz’ Tchividjian, a founding member and
Executive Director of G.R.A.C.E (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian
Environment). Born in Vevey,
Switzerland, Boz grew up in south Florida, where he served as Assistant
State Attorney, Seventh Judicial Circuit (1994-2001). While in that position,
he was chief Prosecutor, Sexual Crimes Division, where he gained much
experience in cases involving sexual abuse and harassment. In 2003, Boz helped
found G.R.A.C.E. to educate and equip the faith community to correctly respond
to sexual abuse disclosures, while also providing practical guidance to
churches on how to protect children. G.R.A.C.E provides confidential
consultations to churches, schools, & other organizations which are
struggling with issues involving sexual abuse. Boz and his family live near Lynchburg,
Virginia where he serves as a law professor atLiberty University School of
Law. He is blessed to be a grandson of Dr. Billy Graham and
recently published his first book entitled,Invitation - Billy Graham and the Lives God Touched. I tried to
incorporate some of your questions from the comment section into the interview.
I hope you learn as much from Boz as I
did. Please consider passing this along to the leadership of your church to ensure they are doing everything in their power to prevent and report abuse.

Trigger Warning: child abuse, sexual abuse in a church setting

***

Boz Tchividjian: Rachel, I
want to thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed and to hopefully
highlight some fundamental issues confronting today’s Church. I want to thank and acknowledge the following
dear friends for giving me invaluable guidance in the preparation of these
answers: Diane Langburg, Phil Monroe,
Duncan Rankin, Tamara Rice, Andrew Schmutzer, and Victor Vieth. I don’t have the time or space to thank the
untold number of saints who God uses to encourage and inspire me each day along
this difficult, but beautiful path.

RHE: Well, thank
you for taking the time to discuss this important issue! To start, tell us a
little about what G.R.A.C.E.

BT: In 1994, I became a prosecutor in central Florida, and eventually
became the chief of the sexual crimes division. During that time, God opened my
eyes to the physical, emotional and spiritual harm resulting from child sexual
abuse. After leaving the prosecutor’s office in 2001, I was burdened to apply
what I had learned on the front lines as a child sexual abuse prosecutor in
helping to train and equip the faith community to address the many issues
associated with abuse. In response to this burden, I formed GRACE in 2004.

Within just a few short years, God brought together a group of
internationally respected experts from various disciplines. Our board of
directors consists of current and former child abuse prosecutors,
investigators, mental health professionals and theologians. Taken together, our
board has well over 100 years of experience working with abused and neglected
children. Our board members have authored numerous scholarly works on child
maltreatment, have served as expert witnesses in courts of law, have testified
before congress, and have taught thousands of professionals throughout the
United States and many parts of the world.

During the past eight years, GRACE has primarily
focused on two issues; prevention and response.
We spend much of our time working with churches and other faith organizations
on how to minimize opportunities for abuse to occur within their environments.
We also provide assistance to the Christian community in understanding the
vital importance of responding to abuse disclosures in a manner that
demonstrates both knowledge of the issues, and compassion to those involved.

In recent years, GRACE has had the
opportunity to assist major faith based institutions in addressing allegations
regarding their alleged mishandling of past abuse disclosures. Oftentimes, the
survivors of such abuse do not trust the institution to internally investigate
and evaluate such claims. As a result, these institutions have requested GRACE to act as a third party investigator and
provide an open and objective analysis of the facts, along with
recommendations. (Our current independent investigation involves Bob Jones
University. This work has also been instrumental in facilitating
substantive changes in how some of these institutions understand and respond to
issues related to child abuse.

Most recently, GRACE is in the
process of a breakthrough project that will fundamentally change the way the
faith community addresses and responds to the many issues associated with child
abuse. I will discuss this in greater
detail below.

RHE: During your
tenure as a prosecutor, you prosecuted hundreds of child abuse cases, and then
went on to be a founding member of GRACE.
What motivates you to do this kind of work? It must be heartbreaking at times.
Why is it so important, and how does your faith inform your work?

BT: It was not
until I became a prosecutor that I saw for the very first time the utter
devastation that is caused by the horrors of sexual abuse. I will never forget sitting across my desk
from weeping parents who had only recently learned that their 9 year old
daughter had been sexually victimized by one of their best friends. I will also never forget meeting that
beautiful 9 year old little girl. A girl
whose life had just begun, but who never had the opportunity to enjoy childhood
because of the evils perpetrated upon her.
Though the abuse had forever changed the life of this precious child, I
came to realize that the abuse had not destroyed her soul and that underneath it all she was still a 9 year old
who had childhood interests, aspirations for what she wanted to do when she
“grew up”, and even dreamed of going to Disney World. It was during those moments when I realized
that God had given me an incredible privilege to be placed in such a position
for the purpose of expending myself to those who were struggling through these
very dark and painful valleys of life.

During the past ten years as the executive director of GRACE, I have been so blessed to have many
similar precious experiences with abuse survivors. However, one of the great tragedies I have
encountered is how the Church has so often failed in expending itself in love
to so many survivors of abuse. I have
too often seen where the Church has sacrificed the individual soul for the
“benefit” and “protection” of the institution.
GRACE often encounters these wonderful
individuals years later and discovers that so many have lost all hope in life
and are unable to have a relationship with God. And I cannot blame or fault them. The blame and fault lies squarely with a
professing Christian community who has all too often failed to understand and
apply the beautiful Gospel – in which God sacrificed Himself for the
individual, not the other way around.
Abuse survivors often struggle to believe that those of us from GRACE are Christians simply because we listened
to them and valued them as human beings.
One recent survivor expressed, I have
never been treated with so much love and compassion. There was no
judgment. There was no shame. I was accepted for who I was. They valued me as a person. Another survivor wrote, I am
realizing more and more that pretty much no one in the Christian community
seems to care about any of these things – at least not in the sense of doing
anything about it or speaking out against it. I’m thankful that GRACE does.

The words of
Jesus that most often run through my head (and heart) these days is, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in
my name welcomes me. [Mark 9:37a]
God has helped me to realize that the love I expend for these incredible
people is fueled by the love He expended for me. It is that powerful and beautiful truth that
keeps me going even during the darkest of days.
Knowing
that God is using me in some small way to demonstrate Jesus to those whose
knowledge and understanding of Him have been distorted or destroyed is an
incredible blessing for which I do not deserve.

RHE: What are
some of the most common mistakes churches and Christian organizations make when
it comes to preventing child abuse?

Silence is one of the most common failures of the Christian community
in preventing child abuse. In 2 Samuel
13, upon learning that his sister Tamar had been raped by her brother Amnon,
Absalom stated, Keep silent my sister, he
is your brother, do not take this matter to heart. Tragically, not much has changed in over three
thousand years. Too many within the
Christian community respond to the prevalence of child abuse with a dangerous
and very hurtful silence. A silence that
is too often preferred over acknowledging the existence of such evil within our
midst. A silence that is too often
preferred over openly discussing how to protect our little ones from
perpetrators. A silence that is too
often preferred over the hard work required to develop and implement effective
child protection policies. A silence
that is too often preferred over the cries of hurting children.

Though we are greatly encouraged by the fact that more and more
churches are adopting child protection policies, one common mistake is that
that many of these policies are being developed by those who have very little
knowledge and experience with addressing child abuse. A PhD, M.D. or even J.D. after a person’s
last name does not automatically qualify them to develop effective child
protection policies. As a result, these
policies often fall short in effectively protecting little ones. One common example is the over-dependence
upon background checks. Background
checks will only catch perpetrators who have been caught and convicted in
court. In her book, Predators, Dr. Anna Salter references one study that found that men
who molest children average between 20 to 150 victims. What this clearly tells us is that by the
time an offender gets caught, they have very likely already victimized dozens
of other children. Thus, background
checks provide no protection against perpetrators who have never been caught or
who simply never will. GRACE encourages churches and other
Christian organizations to seek out the assistance of trained child protection
professionals when drafting their child protection policies.

The other common failure in preventing child abuse is the
notion that having a good child protection policy makes children safe. A child protection policy is only the first step
in minimizing the opportunities for abuse.
In fact, one consequence of an effective child protection policy is that
it will help to develop a culture of protection within the church/organization. This simply means that protecting children
becomes a “way of life” for the Christian community, not something to be put
back on the shelf once a policy has been adopted. A culture of protection can be evidenced by a
church that always keeps issues related to abuse on the forefront of its
agenda. For example, such a culture may
include some or all of the following; ongoing safety classes for parents,
children and youth, sermons that teach about the value of children and that
openly address issues related to abuse, ongoing child protection training for
staff and volunteers, and the hosting of community wide events that address
issues related to abuse. We are
encouraged by more and more churches that have expressed a desire to make child
protection a priority of their culture.

We provide a variety of resources on our website for
churches and individuals who want to learn how to minimize the opportunities
for abuse within their own environment.

RHE: What are
some of the most common mistakes churches and Christian organizations make when
it comes to responding to abuse?

BT: The greatest
failure of the church/Christian organizations when it comes to responding to
abuse is institutional self-protection.
Too often Christian institutions have been willing to sacrifice the
individual human soul in exchange for the protection of their own
reputation. What makes such responses
even more heinous is that they are often justified in the name of “protecting
the name of Christ”. Such a
justification is nothing but a pious attempt at self-protection. It may come as a surprise to some but Jesus
does not need us to protect His name! In
fact, it was Jesus who sacrificed Himself for the soul of the individual. Tragically, in all of its attempts at
self-protection, the Church too often completely misses this beautiful
truth. As a result, many abuse
survivors in the Church are pushed away from the arms of Jesus and prevented
from experiencing glorious Gospel love.
This reminds me of the passage in Mark 10 when the disciples rebuked the
parents for bringing their children into the arms of Jesus. This passage is perhaps one of the most powerful
biblical illustrations of how often it is those who walk closest to Jesus
prevent children from approaching Him. It
is not that the disciples didn’t care about these children, but they just cared
more about what they believed was important to Jesus. Unfortunately, this is still the response of
many church leaders when confronted by abuse.
Our Lord could not have been clearer to His disciples that children are
His pressing priority and that He takes great joy in their presence. This beautiful and powerful truth has not
changed.

I often share
with church leaders that the Gospel-centered response to abuse by the institution
is one that demonstrates transparency, vulnerability, and sacrifice. This is so powerfully demonstrated by the
fact that God did His most powerful work when His son was naked (transparent)
and weak (vulnerable) nailed to a cross (sacrifice). If such was the response of the Church to
those who have suffered abuse, many would be discovering authentic love and
hope for the very first time.

I recently asked
a group of abuse survivors what they considered to be a “Godly response to abuse”. Some of their responses were as follows:

Humility

Listen without
criticism

Being honest that
we don’t have all of the answers

Love the victim

Read over
his interactions with people throughout the Gospels. And let Him speak through
you.

I find their
responses to be an incredibly beautiful picture of what an authentic Jesus
centered Church should be to precious souls who have experienced abuse of any
kind. Perhaps St. Teresa put it best
when she wrote; Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands or feet but
yours. Yours are the eyes with which he sees, yours are the feet with which he
walks, yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

May God in His
mercy continue to transform the heart and soul of His Church.

RHE: How do children
typically disclose abuse?

BT: Generally speaking, children don’t intentionally
disclose their victimization. There are many reasons for this. As adults, we
would feel uncomfortable publicly disclosing even positive sexual experiences
with our marriage partners. In the same way, children are understandably
reluctant to disclose their sexual experiences—particularly when the
experiences are negative. Since most abuse is at the hands of a loved one, the
child may be worried what will happen to their parent, and to them, if the
parent is removed from the home. A boy may be worried that disclosure will
cause him to be labeled as weak or as a homosexual. Children who have a
biological reaction to sexual abuse may blame themselves for the abuse. Some
children have been threatened or had their pets threatened as a means of
coercing them to maintain the secret. One Christian survivor of abuse told me
how her father tortured her cat as a means of keeping her quiet. Children who
have been photographed may be scared that the images of them having sex with a
loved one will be shown on television. As a result of these and other dynamics,
many victims carry their secrets into adulthood, even to the grave.

In many cases, the child makes an accidental disclosure.
In one Christian school, for example, the children were asked to keep a journal
as a means of encouraging them to write. One of the children wrote in her
journal about her father sexually abusing her, unaware that the teacher would
be collecting the journals. In another case, a Christian girl was staying over
at a friend’s house and the mother of her friend overheard her bedtime prayer:
“Dear Jesus, please don’t let dad have sex with me on my birthday.” Sometimes,
older children disclose abuse as part of an angry outburst. In one case, a
father denied his teenage daughter the keys to the car and, at a family
reunion, the daughter angrily denounced her dad and called him a child
molester. Sometimes, a child will tell a best friend who discloses the abuse to
an authority figure. In one case, a 14 year old rape victim detailed the abuse
in a letter to her best friend in northern Minnesota. The letter was discovered
by the mother of the victim’s friend.
There are times when children will share their abuse with a close friend
who promises not to tell anyone else.
Unfortunately, these friend disclosures are often accompanied by a
promise not to tell anyone else. All too
often these disclosures are never reported.

Environments where abuse issues are openly addressed and discussed are
the environments that children will be most empowered to come forward and
disclose.

RHE: Are false
allegations of abuse common among children?

BT: In the nearly two decades I’ve worked as or with
prosecutors, I never get asked about false allegations of burglary, robbery,
arson or a host of other offenses. However, nearly every time I speak to lay
persons about child abuse the question of false allegations is among the first
things lay persons ask.

In the wake of some high profile daycare abuse cases in the
mid-1980s, there was a rash of studies which found that, with enough effort, it
might be possible to convince a small percentage of typically very young
children that something happened to them which in fact did not happen.[1] In
one study, for example, researchers got some very young children to believe
they got their finger caught in a mousetrap when, in fact, they had never had
this experience.

Of course, there is no study in which researchers try to
convince young children that they have been sexually abused by someone but
existing research does make clear that children should be interviewed by well
trained professionals skilled in child development, cognitive development, and
a whole host of factors that may contribute to a child’s suggestiveness.

Since the 1980’s, federal and state governments have poured
significant resources into improving the quality of interviews with children
suspected of being abused. Many states have developed intensive, five day
interviewing courses for front line investigators.[2]
Although these reforms do not eliminate the possibility of a false allegation,
they greatly reduce the possibility.

It is also helpful to remember that, even before the
investigative reforms, several studies confirm what common sense teaches—that
it is extremely unusual for a child, particularly a young child, to make a
false allegation of abuse.[3] For example, a study conducted in 2000 found
that only 1.5% of sexual abuse disclosures by children were false.[4] There are at least three reasons for this.

First, young children have limited knowledge of sexual
activity. A four year old child who describes performing an act of fellatio on
her father did not acquire that knowledge from watching Sesame Street. Even if the child was exposed to explicit
pornography, it is unlikely that she could describe the sights, smells or
sounds of sexual abuse unless she actually experienced the event.

Second, in most cases, tremendous familial and societal
pressure is placed on the child not to
make an allegation of abuse. A child disclosing abuse may be removed from the
home, forced to live with strangers, may have to endure an uncomfortable
medical examination, may have to speak with adults about uncomfortable sexual
matters, and will often be ostracized by their families, and in their homes,
schools and churches. These pressures are so great that many abused children will decide that living
with the lie is easier than telling the truth and will recant a truthful
allegation.[5]

Third, children are not the sophisticated liars that adults
are. Although all human beings can and do lie, young children are not very good
at it. A young child may deny taking the last cookie from the cookie jar—but
the crumbs on their face give them away. When a friend of mine was a little boy
he was eating a pork chop dinner with his mother. When his mom left the dining
room table for a moment, my friend seized the pork chop, ran into the living
room and stuffed it down a couch. When
his mother returned and asked him where the pork chop was he lied and told her
that he ate it. When my friend’s mother asked what happened to the bone, he
told her that he had thrown it outside. When his mother asked him to show her
where the bone was, my friend finally caved in and confessed it was in the
couch.

Given the unsophisticated nature of children’s lies, it is
doubtful that many, if any, young children could concoct a detailed, believable
story of sexual abuse and keep it intact over several recitations and under the
scrutiny of cross-examination at the hands of a skilled defense attorney.

Some churches
seem to think that reports of abuse are best handled "in house"
without contacting authorities. Why is this a mistake?

As GRACE works with
churches and other Christian institutions, we often encounter professing
Christians who struggle with whether suspected abuse within the Christian
community should be reported to the civil authorities. This struggle extends beyond the borders of
the United States and is unfortunately sometimes the mindset of missionary
organizations. The issue often
professed to be at the heart of this critical struggle is whether the Church is
obligated to subject itself to the laws of man when it believes that it is
capable to address the sin in-house.

A fundamental question that Christians must confront when
processing this issue is whether the Church is subject to the laws of civil
government. This is an issue that has
generated years and volumes of debate within the Christian community ever since
Christ was confronted by the Pharisees concerning what belonged to Caesar. [i]Regardless
of how one sides on this issue, a plain reading of Romans 13, clearly indicates
that the civil government plays a role in God’s design for society and His
people.[ii] Many Christians seem to differ on the extent
to which Christians are morally obligated to obey civil laws that do not
require disobedience to God’s law (in which cases, he must not obey). [iii] There is nothing more that I can contribute
to that debate, which has not already been argued and re-argued for
centuries. However, there seems to be
a general consensus among Christians that the civil government has a general
duty and obligation to establish order within society for the purpose of
protecting its citizenry from physical harm intentionally inflicted by others.[iv] A central purpose of criminal laws is to
punish those in society who intentionally commit inherently wrong actions that
result in some form of harm to another.[v] Such punishments are a necessary and central
ingredient to an orderly and safe society.
If that is the case, can there be any greater responsibility of the
civil government than to punish citizens who violate laws designed to protect
society’s most vulnerable members…..children?
In order to determine whether such a law has been violated, the civil
government must be notified of the alleged offense. Governments are incapable of carrying out
this Biblical mandate if the citizens fail to report the alleged criminal
actions. Therefore, Christians impede
this biblical mandate when we fail to report suspected crimes against children
to the civil government for investigation and possible prosecution of the
offenders. Hindering another from
carrying out a biblical mandate is disobedience to God, otherwise known as sin.[vi]

In order to effectively carry out its responsibility of
protecting children, most states have laws that mandate certain citizens to
report suspected neglect or abuse of children.[vii] Violation of these mandated reporting laws
subjects the violator to criminal penalties, including but not limited to, jail.
Thus, Christians in the United States
have both a biblical and legal mandate to report suspected abuse of children.
When the fail to fulfill this mandate, Christians can and should be
prosecuted. For example, in recent
months two pastors of Victory Christian Center, a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
were criminally charged for failing to report child sexual abuse disclosures.

Besides the biblical and legal grounds for reporting
suspected abuse to the civil authorities, there are also practical reasons to
do so. The Church lacks the
understanding, experience and the abilities to address abuse issues “in house
”. The civil government has the exclusive authority to unilaterally remove
children from guardians who are inflicting physical and/or emotionally
harm. Therefore, if a child is
suspected of being maltreated by their guardian, the child will generally not
be removed from such an environment unless such has been brought to the
attention of the proper authorities.[viii] Oftentimes, the child’s very survival is
based upon whether we take the initiative and report suspected abuse. There can be little debate within the
Christian community that the protection and survival of children is a God
ordained responsibility that we cannot neglect or excuse.

I have yet to encounter an abuse situation that was handled
“in house” where the consequences were not extremely harmful to the abuse
survivor. All too often these issues are
handled “in house” in a church-centered attempt to avoid public scrutiny and to
bring the matter to a close as quickly as possible so that the church can
return to more “productive Gospel work”.
The sooner a church can manipulate some form of “reconciliation” between
the victim and the perpetrator, the sooner it can forget about this messy
situation. Tragically, this rush to
reconciliation will often guilt the victim into thinking that the harmful
effects of the abuse are a result of his/her own spiritual weaknesses or
failures and that a “godly response to abuse” requires the embrace of the
offender while minimizing the effects of the abuse. Not surprisingly, this church-centered
response leads to devastating consequences in the life of the abuse
survivor. Such responses to abuse have
nothing to do with the Gospel, and everything to do with placing the
institution over the individual.

Such an “in house” institution-centered response can also
reap devastation by exposing unsuspecting children and their families to
perpetrators. GRACE recently conducted an independent
investigation involving a missionary organization where a missionary physician
confessed to sexually victimizing a child on the mission field. This perpetrator was sent home with a letter
sent to supporting and host churches explaining that his premature return home
was based upon a “moral indiscretion”. As a result, this self-confessed child
molester was able to return home and operate a family medical practice for over
20 years. From everything we could
gather, this physician’s patients or anyone else for that matter, had any
knowledge of his prior sexual abuse. To
date, no one knows how many other children may have been sexually victimized by
this offender at his medical practice or within his community. Sadly, this type of situation is all too
common within the Christian community that decides to handle abuse claims “in
house”.

Why do some churches and other Christian institutions
struggle with reporting suspected abuse to the civil authorities? Regardless of the stated reasons, the common
thread running through this struggle is a “fear” that is rooted in
self-centeredness. It is a “fear” of
losing the “good reputation” of a ministry, it is the “fear” of losing ministry
donors, it is the “fear” of losing congregation members, it is the “fear” of
losing a ministry altogether, and all such “fears” are usually wrapped in a
fundamental falsehood that reporting such abuse within the Christian community
will “damage the cause of Christ”.[ix] Do you see the great tragedy of this
self-centered fear? Ultimately, it is
an attempt to rob God of his sovereignty and glory by attempting to “protect” identities
and possessions. This is in direct
contravention of the Gospel. The Gospel
tells us that our identity is in Christ alone and that our reputation and all
that we possess belongs to God. Another
way of putting it is that apart from Christ’s accomplishment, we have no
reputation and we possess nothing.
This Gospel-centered perspective gives Christians (including churches) great
freedom to confess, confront and expose sin without fear of the earthly
consequences. By doing so, we
acknowledge God’s holiness, His sovereignty, and our dependence upon the power
of the Gospel. This Gospel centered
perspective must drive the Church to obey the God ordained civil authorities
who are charged with protecting our little ones and punishing those who harm
them.

The next time someone tells you that reporting suspected
abuse within the Christian community will “hurt the cause of Christ”, tell them
that we are attempting to rob God of worship when we leave criminal behavior to
fester and grow in the darkness of silence.

RHE: How does Matthew 18 apply (or not apply) to
abuse situations?

BT: I am always encountering professing Christians who quote
Matthew 18 as the biblical process by which child sexual abuse must be
addressed within the Christian community.
As a consequence, this passage is used as a justification for 1) not
reporting abuse disclosures to the civil authorities and 2) convincing sexual
abuse victims to privately confront their perpetrators. Needless to say, this misinterpretation of
Matthew 18 is hugely destructive on a number of fronts. More importantly, this misinterpretation is
simply not biblical.

In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus prescribes three progressive
steps for handling personal offenses within the local church: 1) a private
confrontation, 2) a witnessed confrontation, and 3) a wider confrontation
before the church. At each step, the goal is repentance by the offender
as a basis for reconciliation with the offender, so that fellowship may be
restored with the victim. If all three approaches are rebuffed, then the
offender is no longer part of the fellowship on earth (Matthew 18:17b),
becoming instead an object of evangelism.

A fundamental point that must be understood early on in this
discussion is that the crime of child sexual abuse is not merely a personal
offense, but rather it is an urgent public concern. Child sexual abuse
does not even fit into the paradigm of which Jesus was speaking in Matthew
18. Jesus never intended his statements in Matthew 18 to be twisted into
the required method for handling murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, or
genocide. Child sexual abuse is not a private matter but rather a public
and civic one, rightly under the sword of the civil authority. All are
endangered by this crime against a little one.

Matthew 18 is important for local church life, because Jesus
commands us there how to deal with sin. But it is not the only passage in
which Jesus tells us how to deal with sin. It must be properly
synthesized with others that address the same subject directly and/or
indirectly. It is critical to remember that all passages are regulated
and interpreted by the balance of Scripture.

There is another teaching of Jesus that regulates how child
sexual abuse is to be handled procedurally. In Romans 13, Jesus tells us
through the Apostle Paul that believers are to be subject to the civil
authorities. They swing the sword as God’s ministers, bringing wrath upon
evil- doers (Romans 13:1-4). Child sexual abuse has been deemed to be
criminal by the civil authorities deserving of just punishment.

The scourge of child sexual abuse is not just a sin
violating the 7th Commandment in Exodus 20:14 and
Matthew 5:27-30, but it is also a criminal offense in all 50 States. It
is not a matter which can be handled quietly between two persons or between two
families, as was misguidedly done in Genesis 34 and in many churches
today. It is a matter of public alarm, because of its pervasive,
extensive, and expansive nature, causing a cascade of misery in countless
lives. Additionally, the God-ordained civil authorities in virtually
every jurisdiction mandate in some fashion that suspected child abuse be
immediately reported to law enforcement.

Thus, any claim that we must follow the Matthew 18
progressive confrontation process before reporting disclosures of child sexual
abuse to the civil authorities is simply wrongheaded: God’s minister’s—the
civil authorities—must be informed first!

In this, child sexual abuse is like murder. Anyone who
would demand that the family of a murder victim must first follow the Matthew
18 process before calling the police could be criminally charged themselves for
being an accessory after the fact. What kind of twisted mind would reason
that kidnapping or rape ought to be concealed from the civil authorities while
a process of church discipline is pursued first?

Furthermore, proper respect for the civil authorities as
commanded in Romans 13 also demands that we not disturb their
investigation. Paul says they are due taxes, custom, fear, and honor
(Romans 13:5-7): a broad enough set of categories to call us all to not impede
their process of inquiry. The believer must stand back while the freight
train of the state runs its investigation through the station of life.
The church must pause until the civil process is finished, before commencing
its own. Nothing in Matthew 18 demands that pursuit of personal offenses
within the local church must trump reporting criminal activity or the proper
civil investigation thereof!

Let’s remember that the common thread running through
Matthew 18, 1 Peter 4, and Romans 13 in the life of the believer and church is
something most fundamental of all: love from God, for God, and for His image in
humankind (Deuteronomy 5:1-21; Matthew 5-7; 1 Corinthians 13; and Colossians
2:6-19). The distorted interpretation of Matthew 18 commonly lacks this
Christ-like virtue. Through the Apostle
Paul, Jesus instructs us to have the proper attitude towards one another: “With
humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than
himself” (Philippians 2:3). Thus, any action taken by Christians on the basis
of Matthew 18 that involves arrogance, pride, or malice—so common in how some
carry out Matthew 18 process—is downright heretical. Using Scripture and
the words of Jesus as an occasion to further sin against a victim of our own
sin is morally and spiritually frightening!

It is imperative that we not misinterpret and misapply
Matthew 18:15-20 to the sin of child sexual abuse. “Let the disclosing
little child come forward privately and accuse me!” the powerful one
protests. That monstrous interpretation has not one leg to stand on
before Jesus.

RHE: What's your take
on Sovereign Grace Ministries' appeal to First Amendment protection in response
to the lawsuit alleging leaders in the denomination covered up child abuse?

BT: I don’t have enough information to comment on this specific case.
However, it should be noted that a
common response of child abusers and those who aid and abet child abusers is to
deflect the focus away from themselves or to assert some loftier principle—such
as claiming a first amendment issue is at stake. Regardless of how a court
rules regarding legal defenses, a church will have to ultimately justify its
conduct before Christ.

RHE: What is
GRACE doing to train and equip the Christian community in addressing abuse for
future generations?

BT: During the past few years, the GRACE team has come to the realization
that if the Christian community is truly going to work towards ridding our
world of abuse, it is going to require a more comprehensive approach and one
that will last for generations into the future. During the past year, GRACE has worked with a handful of Christian
academic institutions in developing a proposal for the creation of the National
GRACE Center.

The National GRACE Center will
fundamentally change the way the faith community addresses and responds to the
many issues associated with child abuse. This Center will be located on the
campuses of Christian educational institutions located strategically throughout
North America. This historic center will research issues related to abuse and
spirituality, as well as train and equip the faith community and front line
professionals to better understand, confront, and respond to the many issues
related to child abuse. Included in this
landmark plan is the development of child protection curriculum that will
prepare the leaders of tomorrow on how to correctly address this issue within
their spheres of influence. To date, four
Christian academic institutions have expressed interest in partnering with GRACE to make The National
GRACE Center a reality (Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach,
Florida; Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Wheaton College in
Wheaton, Illinois; and Biblical Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

In sum, The National GRACE Center will
improve undergraduate and graduate training of Christians entering child
protection careers; improve the ability of the Christian community to respond
in a godly manner to the needs of child abuse victims, and provide training and
technical assistance to churches struggling to address the sin of child abuse.
To date, we know of nothing similar to such an historical center.

At this point in time, GRACE is still looking for
additional Christian academic institutions that may be interested in hosting a
regional GRACE Center. Please let us
know if you aware of any institutions who may want to be a part of this
historical endeavor. Additionally, though GRACE has recently
received some generous gifts to help launch the National GRACE Center, we are
still in need of additional funding. If
you or someone you know may have an interest in supporting this Center, please
let us know so we can provide you with additional information.

RHE: What makes
you proud...of your work, of abuse survivors, of the Church?

BT: He who would
search for pearls must dive below.
– John Dryden. I often tell people that the GRACE team spends a large part of our
lives swimming in Christian cesspools that are created when the Christian
community sacrifices individual souls for institutional protection and reputation. This is a dark underbelly that the Church
would rather ignore because acknowledging it would require being confronted
with its own dark and destructive sins.
It’s much easier and much more glamorous for the Church to invest time
and energy into building programs, evangelism techniques, and theological
debates. All the while these cesspools
are filling with precious human souls who are drowning because they’ve lost
hope—lost hope in life, lost hope in the Church, and lost hope in God. They have lost all hope because the
professing Christian community has either abused them or responded with nothing
but silence to their cries for help.

It is these pearls that I encounter each time I dive below, into the
dark and lonely cesspools of Christendom.
They’ve been left for dead by much of the Church, yet they are the first
to expend of themselves in pursuing and loving other hurting souls. Their own cries have been ignored, but
they’re the first to listen to the cries of those around them. Though the commitment of the Church to abuse
survivors is often self-centered and short-lived, the commitment these
survivors demonstrate to each other is usually selfless and lifelong.

What strikes me is that the Gospel is often demonstrated more clearly
and more powerfully in those who believe they have lost all hope than in the
Church itself. In fact, I’m more and
more convinced that those we think are drowning in the Christian cesspools
without hope are actually acting as the hands and feet of Jesus, offering the
very hope they themselves lack to the many others who’ve been forgotten or
ignored by the Church.

In real life, the true heroes are the widows who
drop two coins into the plate with nobody noticing except Jesus—the God of the
universe! In almost 20 years of addressing this issue, I have found that my
heroes are the hundreds of abuse survivors God has privileged me to meet and
serve in some small way on their journey. What many don't realize is that these
survivors demonstrate a more authentic Jesus than I could ever offer
myself. These saints are the pearls down
below, the widows who are giving all they have … and Jesus notices.

[i]Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him. Mark 12:17
(English Standard Version)

[ii]1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities
resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For
rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of
the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his
approval, 4for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you
do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the
servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore
one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake
of conscience. Romans 13: 1-6
(English Standard Version)

[vii]See National
Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, Mandatory
Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect:
State Statutes and Professional Ethics (2010 Update) (http://www.ndaa.org/ncpca_state_statutes.html)

[viii]
In most states, reporting child maltreatment to
the authorities can be done anonymously.

[ix] An international ministry leader recently told me that
allegations of child sexual abuse are not reported to the local authorities out
of fear that such could result in the ministry being “kicked out of the country”
which would “thwart the spread of the Gospel.”

This is the second post of our weeklong
series, Into the Light: A Series on Abuse and the Church, which
features the stories of abuse survivors, along with insights from professional
counselors, legal experts, and church leaders about how to better prepare
Christians to prevent and respond to abuse. (Check out this morning’s post
from Mary DeMuth.) Through the course of the series, we will be discussing
child abuse, spiritual abuse, sexual violence and abuse, and domestic
violence. In addition, my friends
Hannah, Joy, Shaney, and Elora will be hosting a synchroblog focused
specifically on spiritual abuse, which you can learn more about here.

This afternoon, I am
pleased to feature an interview with Basyle ‘Boz’ Tchividjian, a founding member and
Executive Director of G.R.A.C.E (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian
Environment). Born in Vevey,
Switzerland, Boz grew up in south Florida, where he served as Assistant
State Attorney, Seventh Judicial Circuit (1994-2001). While in that position,
he was chief Prosecutor, Sexual Crimes Division, where he gained much
experience in cases involving sexual abuse and harassment. In 2003, Boz helped
found G.R.A.C.E. to educate and equip the faith community to correctly respond
to sexual abuse disclosures, while also providing practical guidance to
churches on how to protect children. G.R.A.C.E provides confidential
consultations to churches, schools, & other organizations which are
struggling with issues involving sexual abuse. Boz and his family live near Lynchburg,
Virginia where he serves as a law professor atLiberty University School of
Law. He is blessed to be a grandson of Dr. Billy Graham and
recently published his first book entitled,Invitation - Billy Graham and the Lives God Touched. I tried to
incorporate some of your questions from the comment section into the interview.
I hope you learn as much from Boz as I
did. Please consider passing this along to the leadership of your church to ensure they are doing everything in their power to prevent and report abuse.

Trigger Warning: child abuse, sexual abuse in a church setting

***

Boz Tchividjian: Rachel, I
want to thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed and to hopefully
highlight some fundamental issues confronting today’s Church. I want to thank and acknowledge the following
dear friends for giving me invaluable guidance in the preparation of these
answers: Diane Langburg, Phil Monroe,
Duncan Rankin, Tamara Rice, Andrew Schmutzer, and Victor Vieth. I don’t have the time or space to thank the
untold number of saints who God uses to encourage and inspire me each day along
this difficult, but beautiful path.

RHE: Well, thank
you for taking the time to discuss this important issue! To start, tell us a
little about what G.R.A.C.E.

BT: In 1994, I became a prosecutor in central Florida, and eventually
became the chief of the sexual crimes division. During that time, God opened my
eyes to the physical, emotional and spiritual harm resulting from child sexual
abuse. After leaving the prosecutor’s office in 2001, I was burdened to apply
what I had learned on the front lines as a child sexual abuse prosecutor in
helping to train and equip the faith community to address the many issues
associated with abuse. In response to this burden, I formed GRACE in 2004.

Within just a few short years, God brought together a group of
internationally respected experts from various disciplines. Our board of
directors consists of current and former child abuse prosecutors,
investigators, mental health professionals and theologians. Taken together, our
board has well over 100 years of experience working with abused and neglected
children. Our board members have authored numerous scholarly works on child
maltreatment, have served as expert witnesses in courts of law, have testified
before congress, and have taught thousands of professionals throughout the
United States and many parts of the world.

During the past eight years, GRACE has primarily
focused on two issues; prevention and response.
We spend much of our time working with churches and other faith organizations
on how to minimize opportunities for abuse to occur within their environments.
We also provide assistance to the Christian community in understanding the
vital importance of responding to abuse disclosures in a manner that
demonstrates both knowledge of the issues, and compassion to those involved.

In recent years, GRACE has had the
opportunity to assist major faith based institutions in addressing allegations
regarding their alleged mishandling of past abuse disclosures. Oftentimes, the
survivors of such abuse do not trust the institution to internally investigate
and evaluate such claims. As a result, these institutions have requested GRACE to act as a third party investigator and
provide an open and objective analysis of the facts, along with
recommendations. (Our current independent investigation involves Bob Jones
University. This work has also been instrumental in facilitating
substantive changes in how some of these institutions understand and respond to
issues related to child abuse.

Most recently, GRACE is in the
process of a breakthrough project that will fundamentally change the way the
faith community addresses and responds to the many issues associated with child
abuse. I will discuss this in greater
detail below.

RHE: During your
tenure as a prosecutor, you prosecuted hundreds of child abuse cases, and then
went on to be a founding member of GRACE.
What motivates you to do this kind of work? It must be heartbreaking at times.
Why is it so important, and how does your faith inform your work?

BT: It was not
until I became a prosecutor that I saw for the very first time the utter
devastation that is caused by the horrors of sexual abuse. I will never forget sitting across my desk
from weeping parents who had only recently learned that their 9 year old
daughter had been sexually victimized by one of their best friends. I will also never forget meeting that
beautiful 9 year old little girl. A girl
whose life had just begun, but who never had the opportunity to enjoy childhood
because of the evils perpetrated upon her.
Though the abuse had forever changed the life of this precious child, I
came to realize that the abuse had not destroyed her soul and that underneath it all she was still a 9 year old
who had childhood interests, aspirations for what she wanted to do when she
“grew up”, and even dreamed of going to Disney World. It was during those moments when I realized
that God had given me an incredible privilege to be placed in such a position
for the purpose of expending myself to those who were struggling through these
very dark and painful valleys of life.

During the past ten years as the executive director of GRACE, I have been so blessed to have many
similar precious experiences with abuse survivors. However, one of the great tragedies I have
encountered is how the Church has so often failed in expending itself in love
to so many survivors of abuse. I have
too often seen where the Church has sacrificed the individual soul for the
“benefit” and “protection” of the institution.
GRACE often encounters these wonderful
individuals years later and discovers that so many have lost all hope in life
and are unable to have a relationship with God. And I cannot blame or fault them. The blame and fault lies squarely with a
professing Christian community who has all too often failed to understand and
apply the beautiful Gospel – in which God sacrificed Himself for the
individual, not the other way around.
Abuse survivors often struggle to believe that those of us from GRACE are Christians simply because we listened
to them and valued them as human beings.
One recent survivor expressed, I have
never been treated with so much love and compassion. There was no
judgment. There was no shame. I was accepted for who I was. They valued me as a person. Another survivor wrote, I am
realizing more and more that pretty much no one in the Christian community
seems to care about any of these things – at least not in the sense of doing
anything about it or speaking out against it. I’m thankful that GRACE does.

The words of
Jesus that most often run through my head (and heart) these days is, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in
my name welcomes me. [Mark 9:37a]
God has helped me to realize that the love I expend for these incredible
people is fueled by the love He expended for me. It is that powerful and beautiful truth that
keeps me going even during the darkest of days.
Knowing
that God is using me in some small way to demonstrate Jesus to those whose
knowledge and understanding of Him have been distorted or destroyed is an
incredible blessing for which I do not deserve.

RHE: What are
some of the most common mistakes churches and Christian organizations make when
it comes to preventing child abuse?

Silence is one of the most common failures of the Christian community
in preventing child abuse. In 2 Samuel
13, upon learning that his sister Tamar had been raped by her brother Amnon,
Absalom stated, Keep silent my sister, he
is your brother, do not take this matter to heart. Tragically, not much has changed in over three
thousand years. Too many within the
Christian community respond to the prevalence of child abuse with a dangerous
and very hurtful silence. A silence that
is too often preferred over acknowledging the existence of such evil within our
midst. A silence that is too often
preferred over openly discussing how to protect our little ones from
perpetrators. A silence that is too
often preferred over the hard work required to develop and implement effective
child protection policies. A silence
that is too often preferred over the cries of hurting children.

Though we are greatly encouraged by the fact that more and more
churches are adopting child protection policies, one common mistake is that
that many of these policies are being developed by those who have very little
knowledge and experience with addressing child abuse. A PhD, M.D. or even J.D. after a person’s
last name does not automatically qualify them to develop effective child
protection policies. As a result, these
policies often fall short in effectively protecting little ones. One common example is the over-dependence
upon background checks. Background
checks will only catch perpetrators who have been caught and convicted in
court. In her book, Predators, Dr. Anna Salter references one study that found that men
who molest children average between 20 to 150 victims. What this clearly tells us is that by the
time an offender gets caught, they have very likely already victimized dozens
of other children. Thus, background
checks provide no protection against perpetrators who have never been caught or
who simply never will. GRACE encourages churches and other
Christian organizations to seek out the assistance of trained child protection
professionals when drafting their child protection policies.

The other common failure in preventing child abuse is the
notion that having a good child protection policy makes children safe. A child protection policy is only the first step
in minimizing the opportunities for abuse.
In fact, one consequence of an effective child protection policy is that
it will help to develop a culture of protection within the church/organization. This simply means that protecting children
becomes a “way of life” for the Christian community, not something to be put
back on the shelf once a policy has been adopted. A culture of protection can be evidenced by a
church that always keeps issues related to abuse on the forefront of its
agenda. For example, such a culture may
include some or all of the following; ongoing safety classes for parents,
children and youth, sermons that teach about the value of children and that
openly address issues related to abuse, ongoing child protection training for
staff and volunteers, and the hosting of community wide events that address
issues related to abuse. We are
encouraged by more and more churches that have expressed a desire to make child
protection a priority of their culture.

We provide a variety of resources on our website for
churches and individuals who want to learn how to minimize the opportunities
for abuse within their own environment.

RHE: What are
some of the most common mistakes churches and Christian organizations make when
it comes to responding to abuse?

BT: The greatest
failure of the church/Christian organizations when it comes to responding to
abuse is institutional self-protection.
Too often Christian institutions have been willing to sacrifice the
individual human soul in exchange for the protection of their own
reputation. What makes such responses
even more heinous is that they are often justified in the name of “protecting
the name of Christ”. Such a
justification is nothing but a pious attempt at self-protection. It may come as a surprise to some but Jesus
does not need us to protect His name! In
fact, it was Jesus who sacrificed Himself for the soul of the individual. Tragically, in all of its attempts at
self-protection, the Church too often completely misses this beautiful
truth. As a result, many abuse
survivors in the Church are pushed away from the arms of Jesus and prevented
from experiencing glorious Gospel love.
This reminds me of the passage in Mark 10 when the disciples rebuked the
parents for bringing their children into the arms of Jesus. This passage is perhaps one of the most powerful
biblical illustrations of how often it is those who walk closest to Jesus
prevent children from approaching Him. It
is not that the disciples didn’t care about these children, but they just cared
more about what they believed was important to Jesus. Unfortunately, this is still the response of
many church leaders when confronted by abuse.
Our Lord could not have been clearer to His disciples that children are
His pressing priority and that He takes great joy in their presence. This beautiful and powerful truth has not
changed.

I often share
with church leaders that the Gospel-centered response to abuse by the institution
is one that demonstrates transparency, vulnerability, and sacrifice. This is so powerfully demonstrated by the
fact that God did His most powerful work when His son was naked (transparent)
and weak (vulnerable) nailed to a cross (sacrifice). If such was the response of the Church to
those who have suffered abuse, many would be discovering authentic love and
hope for the very first time.

I recently asked
a group of abuse survivors what they considered to be a “Godly response to abuse”. Some of their responses were as follows:

Humility

Listen without
criticism

Being honest that
we don’t have all of the answers

Love the victim

Read over
his interactions with people throughout the Gospels. And let Him speak through
you.

I find their
responses to be an incredibly beautiful picture of what an authentic Jesus
centered Church should be to precious souls who have experienced abuse of any
kind. Perhaps St. Teresa put it best
when she wrote; Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands or feet but
yours. Yours are the eyes with which he sees, yours are the feet with which he
walks, yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.

May God in His
mercy continue to transform the heart and soul of His Church.

RHE: How do children
typically disclose abuse?

BT: Generally speaking, children don’t intentionally
disclose their victimization. There are many reasons for this. As adults, we
would feel uncomfortable publicly disclosing even positive sexual experiences
with our marriage partners. In the same way, children are understandably
reluctant to disclose their sexual experiences—particularly when the
experiences are negative. Since most abuse is at the hands of a loved one, the
child may be worried what will happen to their parent, and to them, if the
parent is removed from the home. A boy may be worried that disclosure will
cause him to be labeled as weak or as a homosexual. Children who have a
biological reaction to sexual abuse may blame themselves for the abuse. Some
children have been threatened or had their pets threatened as a means of
coercing them to maintain the secret. One Christian survivor of abuse told me
how her father tortured her cat as a means of keeping her quiet. Children who
have been photographed may be scared that the images of them having sex with a
loved one will be shown on television. As a result of these and other dynamics,
many victims carry their secrets into adulthood, even to the grave.

In many cases, the child makes an accidental disclosure.
In one Christian school, for example, the children were asked to keep a journal
as a means of encouraging them to write. One of the children wrote in her
journal about her father sexually abusing her, unaware that the teacher would
be collecting the journals. In another case, a Christian girl was staying over
at a friend’s house and the mother of her friend overheard her bedtime prayer:
“Dear Jesus, please don’t let dad have sex with me on my birthday.” Sometimes,
older children disclose abuse as part of an angry outburst. In one case, a
father denied his teenage daughter the keys to the car and, at a family
reunion, the daughter angrily denounced her dad and called him a child
molester. Sometimes, a child will tell a best friend who discloses the abuse to
an authority figure. In one case, a 14 year old rape victim detailed the abuse
in a letter to her best friend in northern Minnesota. The letter was discovered
by the mother of the victim’s friend.
There are times when children will share their abuse with a close friend
who promises not to tell anyone else.
Unfortunately, these friend disclosures are often accompanied by a
promise not to tell anyone else. All too
often these disclosures are never reported.

Environments where abuse issues are openly addressed and discussed are
the environments that children will be most empowered to come forward and
disclose.

RHE: Are false
allegations of abuse common among children?

BT: In the nearly two decades I’ve worked as or with
prosecutors, I never get asked about false allegations of burglary, robbery,
arson or a host of other offenses. However, nearly every time I speak to lay
persons about child abuse the question of false allegations is among the first
things lay persons ask.

In the wake of some high profile daycare abuse cases in the
mid-1980s, there was a rash of studies which found that, with enough effort, it
might be possible to convince a small percentage of typically very young
children that something happened to them which in fact did not happen.[1] In
one study, for example, researchers got some very young children to believe
they got their finger caught in a mousetrap when, in fact, they had never had
this experience.

Of course, there is no study in which researchers try to
convince young children that they have been sexually abused by someone but
existing research does make clear that children should be interviewed by well
trained professionals skilled in child development, cognitive development, and
a whole host of factors that may contribute to a child’s suggestiveness.

Since the 1980’s, federal and state governments have poured
significant resources into improving the quality of interviews with children
suspected of being abused. Many states have developed intensive, five day
interviewing courses for front line investigators.[2]
Although these reforms do not eliminate the possibility of a false allegation,
they greatly reduce the possibility.

It is also helpful to remember that, even before the
investigative reforms, several studies confirm what common sense teaches—that
it is extremely unusual for a child, particularly a young child, to make a
false allegation of abuse.[3] For example, a study conducted in 2000 found
that only 1.5% of sexual abuse disclosures by children were false.[4] There are at least three reasons for this.

First, young children have limited knowledge of sexual
activity. A four year old child who describes performing an act of fellatio on
her father did not acquire that knowledge from watching Sesame Street. Even if the child was exposed to explicit
pornography, it is unlikely that she could describe the sights, smells or
sounds of sexual abuse unless she actually experienced the event.

Second, in most cases, tremendous familial and societal
pressure is placed on the child not to
make an allegation of abuse. A child disclosing abuse may be removed from the
home, forced to live with strangers, may have to endure an uncomfortable
medical examination, may have to speak with adults about uncomfortable sexual
matters, and will often be ostracized by their families, and in their homes,
schools and churches. These pressures are so great that many abused children will decide that living
with the lie is easier than telling the truth and will recant a truthful
allegation.[5]

Third, children are not the sophisticated liars that adults
are. Although all human beings can and do lie, young children are not very good
at it. A young child may deny taking the last cookie from the cookie jar—but
the crumbs on their face give them away. When a friend of mine was a little boy
he was eating a pork chop dinner with his mother. When his mom left the dining
room table for a moment, my friend seized the pork chop, ran into the living
room and stuffed it down a couch. When
his mother returned and asked him where the pork chop was he lied and told her
that he ate it. When my friend’s mother asked what happened to the bone, he
told her that he had thrown it outside. When his mother asked him to show her
where the bone was, my friend finally caved in and confessed it was in the
couch.

Given the unsophisticated nature of children’s lies, it is
doubtful that many, if any, young children could concoct a detailed, believable
story of sexual abuse and keep it intact over several recitations and under the
scrutiny of cross-examination at the hands of a skilled defense attorney.

Some churches
seem to think that reports of abuse are best handled "in house"
without contacting authorities. Why is this a mistake?

As GRACE works with
churches and other Christian institutions, we often encounter professing
Christians who struggle with whether suspected abuse within the Christian
community should be reported to the civil authorities. This struggle extends beyond the borders of
the United States and is unfortunately sometimes the mindset of missionary
organizations. The issue often
professed to be at the heart of this critical struggle is whether the Church is
obligated to subject itself to the laws of man when it believes that it is
capable to address the sin in-house.

A fundamental question that Christians must confront when
processing this issue is whether the Church is subject to the laws of civil
government. This is an issue that has
generated years and volumes of debate within the Christian community ever since
Christ was confronted by the Pharisees concerning what belonged to Caesar. [i]Regardless
of how one sides on this issue, a plain reading of Romans 13, clearly indicates
that the civil government plays a role in God’s design for society and His
people.[ii] Many Christians seem to differ on the extent
to which Christians are morally obligated to obey civil laws that do not
require disobedience to God’s law (in which cases, he must not obey). [iii] There is nothing more that I can contribute
to that debate, which has not already been argued and re-argued for
centuries. However, there seems to be
a general consensus among Christians that the civil government has a general
duty and obligation to establish order within society for the purpose of
protecting its citizenry from physical harm intentionally inflicted by others.[iv] A central purpose of criminal laws is to
punish those in society who intentionally commit inherently wrong actions that
result in some form of harm to another.[v] Such punishments are a necessary and central
ingredient to an orderly and safe society.
If that is the case, can there be any greater responsibility of the
civil government than to punish citizens who violate laws designed to protect
society’s most vulnerable members…..children?
In order to determine whether such a law has been violated, the civil
government must be notified of the alleged offense. Governments are incapable of carrying out
this Biblical mandate if the citizens fail to report the alleged criminal
actions. Therefore, Christians impede
this biblical mandate when we fail to report suspected crimes against children
to the civil government for investigation and possible prosecution of the
offenders. Hindering another from
carrying out a biblical mandate is disobedience to God, otherwise known as sin.[vi]

In order to effectively carry out its responsibility of
protecting children, most states have laws that mandate certain citizens to
report suspected neglect or abuse of children.[vii] Violation of these mandated reporting laws
subjects the violator to criminal penalties, including but not limited to, jail.
Thus, Christians in the United States
have both a biblical and legal mandate to report suspected abuse of children.
When the fail to fulfill this mandate, Christians can and should be
prosecuted. For example, in recent
months two pastors of Victory Christian Center, a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
were criminally charged for failing to report child sexual abuse disclosures.

Besides the biblical and legal grounds for reporting
suspected abuse to the civil authorities, there are also practical reasons to
do so. The Church lacks the
understanding, experience and the abilities to address abuse issues “in house
”. The civil government has the exclusive authority to unilaterally remove
children from guardians who are inflicting physical and/or emotionally
harm. Therefore, if a child is
suspected of being maltreated by their guardian, the child will generally not
be removed from such an environment unless such has been brought to the
attention of the proper authorities.[viii] Oftentimes, the child’s very survival is
based upon whether we take the initiative and report suspected abuse. There can be little debate within the
Christian community that the protection and survival of children is a God
ordained responsibility that we cannot neglect or excuse.

I have yet to encounter an abuse situation that was handled
“in house” where the consequences were not extremely harmful to the abuse
survivor. All too often these issues are
handled “in house” in a church-centered attempt to avoid public scrutiny and to
bring the matter to a close as quickly as possible so that the church can
return to more “productive Gospel work”.
The sooner a church can manipulate some form of “reconciliation” between
the victim and the perpetrator, the sooner it can forget about this messy
situation. Tragically, this rush to
reconciliation will often guilt the victim into thinking that the harmful
effects of the abuse are a result of his/her own spiritual weaknesses or
failures and that a “godly response to abuse” requires the embrace of the
offender while minimizing the effects of the abuse. Not surprisingly, this church-centered
response leads to devastating consequences in the life of the abuse
survivor. Such responses to abuse have
nothing to do with the Gospel, and everything to do with placing the
institution over the individual.

Such an “in house” institution-centered response can also
reap devastation by exposing unsuspecting children and their families to
perpetrators. GRACE recently conducted an independent
investigation involving a missionary organization where a missionary physician
confessed to sexually victimizing a child on the mission field. This perpetrator was sent home with a letter
sent to supporting and host churches explaining that his premature return home
was based upon a “moral indiscretion”. As a result, this self-confessed child
molester was able to return home and operate a family medical practice for over
20 years. From everything we could
gather, this physician’s patients or anyone else for that matter, had any
knowledge of his prior sexual abuse. To
date, no one knows how many other children may have been sexually victimized by
this offender at his medical practice or within his community. Sadly, this type of situation is all too
common within the Christian community that decides to handle abuse claims “in
house”.

Why do some churches and other Christian institutions
struggle with reporting suspected abuse to the civil authorities? Regardless of the stated reasons, the common
thread running through this struggle is a “fear” that is rooted in
self-centeredness. It is a “fear” of
losing the “good reputation” of a ministry, it is the “fear” of losing ministry
donors, it is the “fear” of losing congregation members, it is the “fear” of
losing a ministry altogether, and all such “fears” are usually wrapped in a
fundamental falsehood that reporting such abuse within the Christian community
will “damage the cause of Christ”.[ix] Do you see the great tragedy of this
self-centered fear? Ultimately, it is
an attempt to rob God of his sovereignty and glory by attempting to “protect” identities
and possessions. This is in direct
contravention of the Gospel. The Gospel
tells us that our identity is in Christ alone and that our reputation and all
that we possess belongs to God. Another
way of putting it is that apart from Christ’s accomplishment, we have no
reputation and we possess nothing.
This Gospel-centered perspective gives Christians (including churches) great
freedom to confess, confront and expose sin without fear of the earthly
consequences. By doing so, we
acknowledge God’s holiness, His sovereignty, and our dependence upon the power
of the Gospel. This Gospel centered
perspective must drive the Church to obey the God ordained civil authorities
who are charged with protecting our little ones and punishing those who harm
them.

The next time someone tells you that reporting suspected
abuse within the Christian community will “hurt the cause of Christ”, tell them
that we are attempting to rob God of worship when we leave criminal behavior to
fester and grow in the darkness of silence.

RHE: How does Matthew 18 apply (or not apply) to
abuse situations?

BT: I am always encountering professing Christians who quote
Matthew 18 as the biblical process by which child sexual abuse must be
addressed within the Christian community.
As a consequence, this passage is used as a justification for 1) not
reporting abuse disclosures to the civil authorities and 2) convincing sexual
abuse victims to privately confront their perpetrators. Needless to say, this misinterpretation of
Matthew 18 is hugely destructive on a number of fronts. More importantly, this misinterpretation is
simply not biblical.

In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus prescribes three progressive
steps for handling personal offenses within the local church: 1) a private
confrontation, 2) a witnessed confrontation, and 3) a wider confrontation
before the church. At each step, the goal is repentance by the offender
as a basis for reconciliation with the offender, so that fellowship may be
restored with the victim. If all three approaches are rebuffed, then the
offender is no longer part of the fellowship on earth (Matthew 18:17b),
becoming instead an object of evangelism.

A fundamental point that must be understood early on in this
discussion is that the crime of child sexual abuse is not merely a personal
offense, but rather it is an urgent public concern. Child sexual abuse
does not even fit into the paradigm of which Jesus was speaking in Matthew
18. Jesus never intended his statements in Matthew 18 to be twisted into
the required method for handling murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, or
genocide. Child sexual abuse is not a private matter but rather a public
and civic one, rightly under the sword of the civil authority. All are
endangered by this crime against a little one.

Matthew 18 is important for local church life, because Jesus
commands us there how to deal with sin. But it is not the only passage in
which Jesus tells us how to deal with sin. It must be properly
synthesized with others that address the same subject directly and/or
indirectly. It is critical to remember that all passages are regulated
and interpreted by the balance of Scripture.

There is another teaching of Jesus that regulates how child
sexual abuse is to be handled procedurally. In Romans 13, Jesus tells us
through the Apostle Paul that believers are to be subject to the civil
authorities. They swing the sword as God’s ministers, bringing wrath upon
evil- doers (Romans 13:1-4). Child sexual abuse has been deemed to be
criminal by the civil authorities deserving of just punishment.

The scourge of child sexual abuse is not just a sin
violating the 7th Commandment in Exodus 20:14 and
Matthew 5:27-30, but it is also a criminal offense in all 50 States. It
is not a matter which can be handled quietly between two persons or between two
families, as was misguidedly done in Genesis 34 and in many churches
today. It is a matter of public alarm, because of its pervasive,
extensive, and expansive nature, causing a cascade of misery in countless
lives. Additionally, the God-ordained civil authorities in virtually
every jurisdiction mandate in some fashion that suspected child abuse be
immediately reported to law enforcement.

Thus, any claim that we must follow the Matthew 18
progressive confrontation process before reporting disclosures of child sexual
abuse to the civil authorities is simply wrongheaded: God’s minister’s—the
civil authorities—must be informed first!

In this, child sexual abuse is like murder. Anyone who
would demand that the family of a murder victim must first follow the Matthew
18 process before calling the police could be criminally charged themselves for
being an accessory after the fact. What kind of twisted mind would reason
that kidnapping or rape ought to be concealed from the civil authorities while
a process of church discipline is pursued first?

Furthermore, proper respect for the civil authorities as
commanded in Romans 13 also demands that we not disturb their
investigation. Paul says they are due taxes, custom, fear, and honor
(Romans 13:5-7): a broad enough set of categories to call us all to not impede
their process of inquiry. The believer must stand back while the freight
train of the state runs its investigation through the station of life.
The church must pause until the civil process is finished, before commencing
its own. Nothing in Matthew 18 demands that pursuit of personal offenses
within the local church must trump reporting criminal activity or the proper
civil investigation thereof!

Let’s remember that the common thread running through
Matthew 18, 1 Peter 4, and Romans 13 in the life of the believer and church is
something most fundamental of all: love from God, for God, and for His image in
humankind (Deuteronomy 5:1-21; Matthew 5-7; 1 Corinthians 13; and Colossians
2:6-19). The distorted interpretation of Matthew 18 commonly lacks this
Christ-like virtue. Through the Apostle
Paul, Jesus instructs us to have the proper attitude towards one another: “With
humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than
himself” (Philippians 2:3). Thus, any action taken by Christians on the basis
of Matthew 18 that involves arrogance, pride, or malice—so common in how some
carry out Matthew 18 process—is downright heretical. Using Scripture and
the words of Jesus as an occasion to further sin against a victim of our own
sin is morally and spiritually frightening!

It is imperative that we not misinterpret and misapply
Matthew 18:15-20 to the sin of child sexual abuse. “Let the disclosing
little child come forward privately and accuse me!” the powerful one
protests. That monstrous interpretation has not one leg to stand on
before Jesus.

RHE: What's your take
on Sovereign Grace Ministries' appeal to First Amendment protection in response
to the lawsuit alleging leaders in the denomination covered up child abuse?

BT: I don’t have enough information to comment on this specific case.
However, it should be noted that a
common response of child abusers and those who aid and abet child abusers is to
deflect the focus away from themselves or to assert some loftier principle—such
as claiming a first amendment issue is at stake. Regardless of how a court
rules regarding legal defenses, a church will have to ultimately justify its
conduct before Christ.

RHE: What is
GRACE doing to train and equip the Christian community in addressing abuse for
future generations?

BT: During the past few years, the GRACE team has come to the realization
that if the Christian community is truly going to work towards ridding our
world of abuse, it is going to require a more comprehensive approach and one
that will last for generations into the future. During the past year, GRACE has worked with a handful of Christian
academic institutions in developing a proposal for the creation of the National
GRACE Center.

The National GRACE Center will
fundamentally change the way the faith community addresses and responds to the
many issues associated with child abuse. This Center will be located on the
campuses of Christian educational institutions located strategically throughout
North America. This historic center will research issues related to abuse and
spirituality, as well as train and equip the faith community and front line
professionals to better understand, confront, and respond to the many issues
related to child abuse. Included in this
landmark plan is the development of child protection curriculum that will
prepare the leaders of tomorrow on how to correctly address this issue within
their spheres of influence. To date, four
Christian academic institutions have expressed interest in partnering with GRACE to make The National
GRACE Center a reality (Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach,
Florida; Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Wheaton College in
Wheaton, Illinois; and Biblical Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

In sum, The National GRACE Center will
improve undergraduate and graduate training of Christians entering child
protection careers; improve the ability of the Christian community to respond
in a godly manner to the needs of child abuse victims, and provide training and
technical assistance to churches struggling to address the sin of child abuse.
To date, we know of nothing similar to such an historical center.

At this point in time, GRACE is still looking for
additional Christian academic institutions that may be interested in hosting a
regional GRACE Center. Please let us
know if you aware of any institutions who may want to be a part of this
historical endeavor. Additionally, though GRACE has recently
received some generous gifts to help launch the National GRACE Center, we are
still in need of additional funding. If
you or someone you know may have an interest in supporting this Center, please
let us know so we can provide you with additional information.

RHE: What makes
you proud...of your work, of abuse survivors, of the Church?

BT: He who would
search for pearls must dive below.
– John Dryden. I often tell people that the GRACE team spends a large part of our
lives swimming in Christian cesspools that are created when the Christian
community sacrifices individual souls for institutional protection and reputation. This is a dark underbelly that the Church
would rather ignore because acknowledging it would require being confronted
with its own dark and destructive sins.
It’s much easier and much more glamorous for the Church to invest time
and energy into building programs, evangelism techniques, and theological
debates. All the while these cesspools
are filling with precious human souls who are drowning because they’ve lost
hope—lost hope in life, lost hope in the Church, and lost hope in God. They have lost all hope because the
professing Christian community has either abused them or responded with nothing
but silence to their cries for help.

It is these pearls that I encounter each time I dive below, into the
dark and lonely cesspools of Christendom.
They’ve been left for dead by much of the Church, yet they are the first
to expend of themselves in pursuing and loving other hurting souls. Their own cries have been ignored, but
they’re the first to listen to the cries of those around them. Though the commitment of the Church to abuse
survivors is often self-centered and short-lived, the commitment these
survivors demonstrate to each other is usually selfless and lifelong.

What strikes me is that the Gospel is often demonstrated more clearly
and more powerfully in those who believe they have lost all hope than in the
Church itself. In fact, I’m more and
more convinced that those we think are drowning in the Christian cesspools
without hope are actually acting as the hands and feet of Jesus, offering the
very hope they themselves lack to the many others who’ve been forgotten or
ignored by the Church.

In real life, the true heroes are the widows who
drop two coins into the plate with nobody noticing except Jesus—the God of the
universe! In almost 20 years of addressing this issue, I have found that my
heroes are the hundreds of abuse survivors God has privileged me to meet and
serve in some small way on their journey. What many don't realize is that these
survivors demonstrate a more authentic Jesus than I could ever offer
myself. These saints are the pearls down
below, the widows who are giving all they have … and Jesus notices.

[i]Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him. Mark 12:17
(English Standard Version)

[ii]1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities
resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For
rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of
the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his
approval, 4for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you
do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the
servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore
one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake
of conscience. Romans 13: 1-6
(English Standard Version)

[vii]See National
Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, Mandatory
Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect:
State Statutes and Professional Ethics (2010 Update) (http://www.ndaa.org/ncpca_state_statutes.html)

[viii]
In most states, reporting child maltreatment to
the authorities can be done anonymously.

[ix] An international ministry leader recently told me that
allegations of child sexual abuse are not reported to the local authorities out
of fear that such could result in the ministry being “kicked out of the country”
which would “thwart the spread of the Gospel.”

The Scar of Sexual Abuse by Mary DeMuth

"Today's Journey": Thoughts on Healing from Grace Biskie

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